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Malerne Standard

Thanks to Doreen in Florida who gave me the opportunity to review my second Malerne Standard. This is Serial A5940. The batch mark under the keys as 30R.

The LH joint of my first one was shorted by 2.7mm.The original barrel is 61.6mm, not 57.5. The mouthpiece also would have been shortened.

Bore: 14.6mm at the top and bottom of the LH joint.

In order to get sort of in tune, I pulled out about the width of a penny at the barrel and at the middle.

High register

FMIT

F

-20

E

-7

D

-5

C

0

B

3

A

-6

Middle of treble clef

G

6

F

-3

E

-4

D

2

C

-6

B

-12

Throat tones

B-flat

-4

A

-4

G

4

F

0

E

0

Chalemeau

D

-7

C

21

B-flat

10

A

18

G

11

F

-10

E

-18

I expected that an instrument that was stamped so proudly on every joint would have been made as a semi-professional instrument. The intonation however marks this as only appropriate for beginning students. The keys are nice quality. It would certainly work for a marching band horn, if one was reasonably careful with it.

Doreen's instrument came with the original mouthpiece, stamped like the horn, which I felt was not as good as some French Stencil mouthpieces that I have played.

My first Malerne Standard was an interesting but disappointing project! The horn had been butchered. The first could be used to teach about clarinet physics (a subject beyond my skill). The second project shows what an unaltered model plays like.

Bore at top of left-hand joint: 14.6mmBore at bottom of the same joint: 14.73mm

Malerne Standard

I
noticed the extremely short barrel right away, but didn't expect what I
found later. Someone modified this instrument to play in high pitch,
A=455-457. Perhaps they were in an old time polka band, or something.
Instead of shortening the barrel the proper way, taking off the rings
and using a lathe to shorten the inside of the tenon joint, they may
have just used a file. So they reduced the depth of both female tenons
on the barrel, which explains why the metal rings are so narrow. Then
they shortened the mouthpiece (which I did not receive with the horn)
and also shortened the top male tenon of the left hand joint! Aargh!

The
right barrel is what's left of the Malerne, 57.57mm. Note that the
mouthpiece in the top of the Malerne barrel won't go in any farther.

The left barrel is from an Andre Chabot, probably produced at the same factory. It is 63.57mm.

This
clarinet refuses to play in tune (A=440) for me, using barrel rings and
the Chabot barrel, or using a shortened mouthpiece and the Malerne
barrel. For the record, the little tube inside the register key pad
seems to be the right length and in the right position and free of
blockage.

Picture notes:Note the batch number hidden under the keys of both keyed joints.The serial number is A6373.

Malerne clarinets often (always?) have Buffet-style pin-in-hole left pinkie keys.

The first intonation results were using the Chabot barrel, pushed all the way in, plus
a 2mm barrel ring to fill in the outwardly-non-appearing gap caused by
the barrel tenon being filed down for the shortened Malerne barrel. I
was playing a C scale. Ignore any false results for notes like G# and
F#. Those are caused by overtones. Numbers indicate the total fractions
of seconds I played each note. Darker lines on the scale are 10 cents
apart.

This is almost usable intonation. The instrument is flat
on low F, sharp around middle C, flat on throat tone A and B-flat, flat
just over the break, and flat in the upper register.

I
filed off an old plastic student mouthpiece so that it would fit all
the way into the Malerne barrel. I wanted to see how well this would
play in high A=456 pitch. The results were even worse.The tuner is set to A=456. Lower register.